Government plans to reprice NHS medicines based on their benefit to patients could lead to shortages and payment problems, pharmacists have warned. Unless value-based prices matched drug prices in other European countries, parallel export could lead to shortages of new medicines, NPA chief executive Mike Holden told Department of Health (DH) and Nice officials at the all party pharmacy group (APPG) meeting on Tuesday. "There is legitimate trade across the EU, and price differences could exacerbate that," Mr Holden warned.

"The government must put measures in place to ensure pharmacists would be reimbursed correctly if supply problems led to fluctuations in prices," Mr Holden added.



DH community pharmacy tsar Jonathan Mason echoed concerns about the scheme, asking how value could be defined for medicines with multiple indications, while Pharmacy Voice chair Rob Darracott questioned how pharmacists would be consulted on a medicine's value once it was on the market.
 The DH consultation on the proposed move to value-based pricing in 2014 is open until March 17.